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Site Review - Improvements?

Hey,

Ok my main site ... has been slipping lately traffic wise... I was thinking it may be due to the design so im posting here to see what you gods recon...

heres the site..http://tab-archive.com
Now, it is better in the bigger screen sizes.. and i am currently working on fitting it into those.. so that`ll be done - it does not only get smaller in bigger sizes.. but also re-arranges so for the smaller res guys here.. sorry about what you got there on site right now im doing that as we speak.

Also.. have been informed of a prob with moz on the "tab" pages - that im also in process sorthing.

So anything else you guys think could improve client relations?
deadlinks to forums right now i know, server down for forums.

Visual clutter

Sir P,

first of all, code-wise there's the usual mutter (doctype, tables, inefficient CSS), but I won't tire you with that right now.
Design-wise, although the general design has a lot going for it where artwork and color use are concerned, my personal feeling is that of visual clutter; there simply is too much going on on one page. Also, I fail to see a strong reason for the entry page, and the choice made there (for guitar / bass / etc.) is poorly visible in the chosen pages (just a single underline on a small menu item).
A strong page header stating "Guitar tabs" or something like that would make it a lot easier for users to identify where they are, and the home page could better be integrated into the rest of the design. Oh, and always have a "home" button/link on each and every page, with the logo doubling up as one.

Also, because of the table-centric design and the high amount of images in the content that are not content but presentation, the pages all load fairly slowly - and I'm on a fast connection! - and most of the time won't show a thing until everything is loaded; this alone may send visitors away thinking that there's something broken.

I'm currently stuck with a corporate machine running IE5.5/win on a 15" monitor, and 800x600 is about the highest res that still produces legible results; your pages - apart from the entry page - won't fit my window, though. In spite of the main table width set at 750, the main cells in it probably add up to more than that, forcing a nasty scroll bar.

I'd seriously recommend looking into CSS based design to create smaller, faster pages, and to take much of the clutter out; don't try to fit everything on one page, but clearly show users where they have to go to get the stuff they want. Users will click, and more than once, as long as they are sure where they're going.

Yep i agree totally that clutter is a problem - always has been.. I will look into splitting that up cheers.
Yeh screen res as I said. im working over right now so hopefully il get that sorted when i reduce the clutter..

The reason for the intro page asking which instrument is as it selects a database, so users only see music for the specific instrument they selected... the underline is there.. as well as in the title bar guitar should be the first word. But i do see your point and I will try and include a bigger head on the body of each page to tell users where they are thank you!

CSS design? hmmm - I already use CSS on everypage however a few paragraphs and links have got addition html within their tags which is bad practise...i should clean all those up too cheers.

Slimming down

Sir P,

I have to admit I didn't look at each and every image in the source, but I got the impression that quite a bit of them are design implementations. If those aren't included as content images but as CSS backgrounds, it'll shave a good deal off of the page code, making for faster downloading.
And, as you indicated, moving inline styles to an external stylesheet where possible and practical again will reduce page size and speed up loading.

It all may not look like much, but added up I expect there will be significant gains.

cheers for the links - i was on w3schools today checking out CSS guides

Ok everyones input ive been acting on a few of the suggestions.. one of which I already knew but did not want to face as im not good with it, this is layout...

The page im after changing is this one..http://tab-archive.com/tab-archive....strument=guitar
Looks terrible and any res 800 or below :/...
The header/sides I really love and don't really want to change - they are global too... its just the bit in the middle of them.. the body type stuff of the page... top bands etc.. there isnt *that much* stuff on the page tho the way I have the center content designed it looks cluttered...

Ive played with layout after layout just for the middle but no luck.. what I got now, with the stars was the best I could come up with.

So im at the mercy of you guru's... does anyone have any suggestions/ideas or examples of what I should do in the middle?

I totally love the colors, the blue that fades to the black is awsome, maybe all i can say is on the main links, make a display:inline; in the css coding. this isnt my site but i love the colors: http://www.d-nation.org (i like the dark sites)